


The Shortcut

by dustyfluorescent



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:13:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustyfluorescent/pseuds/dustyfluorescent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is a wonderful man. John knows this, but he has a lot of issues with him anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shortcut

**Author's Note:**

> An independent sequel to [Regenerations](http://archiveofourown.org/works/334772).

The Doctor is a wonderful man. John knows this, but he has a lot of issues with him anyway. When the man pops out of nowhere, and drags a smile out of Sherlock that is, for once, completely genuine, and full pure delight, contentment, adoration. Suddenly, Sherlock loves this world, this wonderful universe, how good it can get, truly. And John wants to watch everything around him burn.

It's not about John's stupid pride or whatever. It's not about anything that trivial, not quite. It's about the way Sherlock just lights up when The Doctor is about, and the way they look at each other sometimes. It's not as if John gets to see them together very often, but it's enough. The Doctor and Sherlock go way back, or so he's been told. John thinks he might've solved the mystery of Sherlock's girlfriends and boyfriends, at least enough to see that with that pair, it was never just about friendship, not for a second. Whatever it's called, no matter how it's defined, exactly; it's bigger than that. It's clear that they think it's a miracle they've found something grand like each other. Painfully clear. Painful to watch.

Then The Doctor disappears, or rather stops randomly appearing (because you can't trust absurdly intelligent aliens that travel through time and space in a blue box, John has always said that), and things start going to shit. Sherlock gets bored, and then he starts going mad, and nothing is enough anymore, and his heart is in pieces, and John watches him consumed with bitterness that is making his every breath sour, every heartbeat painful. He watches Sherlock get slowly obsessed with Jim Moriarty, a criminal, a lunatic, and definitely an equal. Nothing like John. John is convenient, easy to impress. Jim, like The Doctor, is new and exciting. A challenge, of sorts. And it's dangerous, and John thinks it's a wonder he hasn't walked out already. But he cares too much. 

He can't leave this man, even if Sherlock would never choose him first.

***

One day, it all ends, and John Watson becomes as good as dead. At first, he notices a tremor in his hand, and it feels unfamiliar, frightening. And then it's the leg again, and _fuck_ , it's frustrating. He gets worse, and as the days get darker, they get longer, too.

When he's out of milk, he doesn't go out to buy more. 

It takes him three years to adjust to his life as a dead man, someone unimportant, living his unsatisfying life day in, day out. And then, suddenly, it's over.

It shouldn't have been a surprise that everything comes crashing down like a house of cards.

***

This is day three.

John is staring out the window and blinking rapidly. There's too much he wants to say, and he can't bring himself to even start before he's already lost the right words. Sherlock would realise that something is wrong, surely, but he doesn't look, doesn't pay any mind. And why should I say anything, John thinks. He doesn't even realise I'm here. The room is dark and the air is heavy, and the little light that gets in through the curtains from the streets of London only seems to be making matters worse. Every angle is sharper, every darkness deeper. There is nowhere to look.

"Why did you wait so long?"

"I had no choice." 

Sherlock's tone of voice is matter-of-factly. It's too familiar, and nothing like the last thing John remembers. Sherlock picks up the violin, and it's grotesque. Everything about it. There is no sound in the room save their breathing, and anything happening outside seems irrelevant. John is frightened. He isn't used to this anymore.

"The Doctor, then."

"He's a friend."

"I know that."

"I needed him."

"I'm sure you did." And then, after a pause, because he feels cruel, "You told me once, years ago, that you only have one friend."

"John -"

Something about Sherlock changes, and just for a second, it seems as though all of this is too much for even him to bear. The moment passes too quickly, and after that, everything is back to normal, only nothing ever will be, not for John. It's been too long, and Sherlock is too late. John isn't sure if he'll ever be fine again in his life.

"He knew you were alive," he says quietly. "He knew all along. And you wouldn't even bother to think that maybe, just maybe, I would've liked to know that, too?"

"It's complicated."

"No, it's not," John chides. He gets up, careful of his bad leg, uncomfortable, shaken, upset. Wrong. Everything is, now, and has been ever since. "It's not complicated. In the end, it comes down to you choosing to trust him instead of me."

"He took me here. I needed his help."

"Right. Because you couldn't bear it. I know how that feels."

And he walks out, ignoring Sherlock's weary protests. He turns his back, tunes out his own thundering heartbeat in his ears. 

He refuses to think back to the conversation they had just two days earlier. It comes back to him, anyway. 

_"I almost didn't make it."_

_"I trusted you would."_

_"I didn't."_

_"You made it, though."_

_"I still don't know," John says, and thinks about the handgun in his top left drawer._

He feels useless and unimportant. The ceiling in his room is dark and very far away. He can feel the gun, an ill omen, a tingle in the back of his neck. It's a presence in the room, tempting, fascinating, an unyelding force that won't let go. He can't explain it, and he doesn't want to, he is as fine as he ever was, and fuck - that's a lie. He isn't getting used to any of this at all. It's excruciating as it ever was before, and that it's over isn't helping. 

And maybe every little ray of hope he ever stumbled upon was The Doctor, and the thought disgusts him. John doesn't want him in his life. He feels like The Doctor has taken something from him. It's something that was never his, surely; but that hardly matters, and it still hurts.

He often thinks about what Sherlock said. The thing about how he only has one friend, that one person who matters. John has always thought he is that friend, but then The Doctor appears, shakes their world with his existence, and John starts to doubt. What if? After all, Sherlock had decided not to tell him. So he thinks of The Doctor and starts to wonder, maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was him all along.

And in the end, despite anything he's ever thought, it all comes down to that moment when Sherlock comes to knock on his door, and there is only one thing he can think of saying.

"Will you come with me tonight?" Sherlock asks.

John doesn't need to think about it. Giving an answer is as easy as breathing.

"When you like and where you like."

***

There are things John doesn't see, because he doesn't look. He fails to see his own importance, the difference he's made, over his grief, consuming him, and turning into something ugly. John never notices the way Sherlock looks at him, with sad, deep eyes, from afar. He never notices the pain about him, written all over his face, but hidden by John's disdain. 

He closes his eyes from the fact that, despite taking the shortcut, every single one of the three years is written on Sherlock's face.


End file.
